Tag Archives: evil day job

As of eleven o’clock tonight I will be unemployed. The long term care facility that I have worked at for the last three years has been sold and I have elected not to sign on with the new company. They’ve been less than forthcoming with information and what we have been able to glean just doesn’t sit right. Still, it’s going to be rough emotionally. Goodbyes are never easy and I’m going to miss some of the people, but I won’t miss the stress.

I have applied for a job at a different site with my current employer, but unless I get a call from HR today I will out of a job.

Scary? Yes. I do have feelers out and some half-promises of a job but the uncertainty is unsettling.

On the other hand, the stress at work has been slowly sapping my energy and every shred of creativity. (I still want to do creative things, but they just haven’t been happening much.)

So, a new adventure awaits.

And what new adventure doesn’t have an element of fear and risk?

I do feel rather like my life is running along without an outline at the moment. Or maybe it’s taken a sharp left away from the outline. Whichever, I am rushing to get caught up to it and get it back on track. Or maybe I should just pants it for a while and see where it goes.

I do know that at midnight tonight I plan to start writing for Camp NaNoWriMo. I still haven’t changed my goal from 31K for the month, but I might kick it up to 50K. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m definitely going to be working on the extra scene for Onyx Sun that I have started, and maybe a couple other minor ones. And then I’ll work on the Elven Bard novel. And I promise to ignore some rather insistent plot bunnies because I don’t want to start anything new until November.

Well, except for a new job. I would like to have one of those before then.

I had an appointment with a cardiologist yesterday and he cleared me – no stress test needed. Happy happy happy day!

The countdown has begun – only 16 more shifts at my current job. Just having made up my mind to not go with the new company has relieved most of my stress. Now if my doctor would just get back to me with when I can pick up my physical form…

And with the stress starting to fade away my energy has started to come back.

Yesterday I planted some tree lily bulbs, Dutch iris bulbs, and some other kind of bulbs that my mother thinks are some kind of lily. I also planted some chocolate mint and regular mint.

This gives me hope that my will to write will come back soon too, so I can do something about these plot bunnies that are nibbling away at my mind.

Meanwhile, I still have other stuff to plant, and some columbine to pry out from between the bricks in the retaining wall and transplant to my garden.

And lots of other craft stuff to keep me occupied. (Not to mention the Kindle app on my phone.)

And I only have three weeks to decide what I’m doing for Camp. I should work on Onyx Sun or the Elven Bard novel. But doing one thousand words for 31 different plot bunnies sounds like fun too. And then there’s the werewolf thing that’s preying on the edges of my mind. It has some characters (without names) and a scene or two, but no real plot. Of course, I have 3 weeks to flesh it out. But I should work on Onyx Sun or the Elven Bard novel…

I hate being undecided.

Or, rather, I hate being decided on too many things – I want to write them all! Right now!

There’s a meme on Face Book that says something along the lines of “When life throws you a curve ball, yell ‘Plot Twist!’ and move on.”

Well, yesterday I got a plot twist.

I’m not entirely sure how it will play out yet. I’ll know more by the end of the month if not before, but for now let’s just say that my stress levels have about tripled.

So, anyhow…

I’ve been thrown off balance and am trying to regain my equilibrium. I’m sure I will and I’m sure it won’t take too long, but in the meantime I find myself in that weird author place where you’re not only caught up in an emotional whirlwind but you’re also outside it, observing the physical sensations.

And as another side effect, there’s also a line kicking around my head that wants (or maybe needs) to be worked into a novel. (Unfortunately, probably not any of the ones that I already have started.)

(Of course not. *sigh*)

Anyhow, I’ve written it down for future use.

In other news, I haven’t made much progress on any of my writing goals.

That’s not to say I haven’t been working on anything. Onyx Sun still needs more scenes added and I’ve started working on one to explain the relationship between Taliya and Soraine, which falls somewhere between friends and rivals, or maybe spans both. Soraine only has a couple brief appearances in the novel so far, but since she’s going to be getting her own book someday I thought maybe I should expand her a bit. And this is a fun bit of writing because it showcases her rather wicked sense of humor. It’s also going to tie in nicely with a couple other scenes, which makes me super happy.

(By the way, I really need to use different paper for different things. I left to run errands on Wednesday and grabbed my shopping list from my keyboard shelf. When I headed into the store and opened it I discovered I’d grabbed my note about how the scene introducing Soraine ties into other scenes. Useful, but not what I really needed at that point in time.)

A conversation with a writer friend prompted me to ask myself why I write.

Is it for the money?

Oh, hell no! I have two books out and I doubt I’ve made $10 total – I know it hasn’t been $20. (A large part of the reason for low sales is that I don’t do nearly enough promotion. I have good reviews, though, so there’s that.)

For the fame?

See above. If no one’s reading (because I’m not promoting) then fame is pretty much non-existent. And as an introvert (to the point of being a hermit) I’m not sure I want fame. I sure don’t want to have to do public appearances anywhere. And my handwriting really sucks so I’m not sure a book signing would be a good thing, either.

So, then, why?

Why do I push myself to write and edit (and eventually publish, honest!) all of the books that I’m working on?

Because…

Because for as much as I hate it at times, I love it.

I love creating/meeting/getting to know characters and telling their stories. (For as long as I can remember I’ve always had stories in my head. I remember as a child thinking in third person, as if my life was a book.)

I love creating worlds and exploring them.

And I both love (and am terrified by) the thought of others reading the stories that I share. I love the idea that, perhaps, at least for a while, I can take others away from their day to day existence and give them an escape, another place to live for a while.

And I write because sometimes I need another place to live for a while.

And, who knows? Maybe someday I’ll be able to make it my day job.

But before I can do that I need to get more books published. I have a ton started and some almost finished, but with my current focus on Onyx Sun and the Academy of the Accord series they’ve all been on the back burner.

I see some authors who seem to have a new release every month or two and I wonder how they do it. (Granted, when The Academy of the Accord is finally released it will be at a rate of one book a month, but there will have been years of writing and editing behind the series. Hopefully not twelve or thirteen years, but still…)

Still, I wonder how they do it.

Then I realize that I do it all myself (except for covers). I write, edit, send to beta readers, revise, edit, format, publish…

And I do it while working full time. (Sometimes I am so jealous of those who can write full time, without needing to work around a day job, but since I am my own (and only) source of income…)

I also tend not to write short novels. (Science fiction and fantasy novels tend to be toward the top of the chart for average word count, due to the world building necessary.) Longer novels… take longer.

Do I wish I could stay home and just write? (And make a living from my novels?)

So far my plans for the month aren’t going too well. I’ve written approximately 400 words in one of the short stories I’m planning to submit to an anthology and that’s been about it.

Why? I have no idea, other than the fact that the evil day job has been draining and by the time I get home I’m too brain dead to do more than poke at a jigsaw puzzle on JigZone.

Remember my plan to use 750words.com for writing instead of brain dumping my day? Yeah. That (obviously) hasn’t happened. I tried. I poked at one of the short stories in 750words and… couldn’t focus.

Maybe because I haven’t been using it for writing lately and I need to get back into the habit of doing that, so that my muse or subconscious or whatever you want to call it knows that when I log in it’s time for some creative writing.

Or maybe I’m going about it the wrong way.

Sometimes, brain dumping is necessary. It can help clear the way for writing by getting other concerns out of your head.

The trick, I think, is to do the brain dump, and then write once the day has been cleared from the mind. I’ve been failing at the second part of that.

I was thinking the other day about how odd it is that I seem to get less written now, when I’m less than five minutes from work, than I did when I had an hour long commute each way. But maybe it’s not so odd. That commute gave me time to clear my head on the way home, and time to psych myself up on the way there, so I was able to be productive when I was home. Instead, I now have to use my time at home to get myself mentally prepped for my day job, and to de-stress from it afterward.

I don’t want to go back to that commute just to test the theory, though, so I’m going to have to find a way to balance brain dumping and writing.

Less than a week left in Camp and I still have 110 pages to go. According to the stats page I have to do 16 pages a day to finish on time, and at my current rate I’ll finish on May 31st. (Hey, at least I’m into May now instead of the end of June.)

All my blog hops are caught up, though, so I should be able to get some pages done before I go to work today.

(Except Pentatonix just released a new video…)

And except there’s stuff I need to do to apply for a new job, too, so… Of course, I’m not going to be mailing the packet of papers today – or tomorrow – so I can work on that when I get home tonight and work on revisions now while I have better lighting to read my handwriting with.

(I’m not sure if that’s a compromise or a procrastination because I dread paperwork.)

I have two more days off this month to attack the revisions, but on one of them I’ll be going to my mother’s to dig up some pink wisteria to bring to my house. (I can’t wait to get the stuff to put up the fence around the yard so I can plant stuff! Fortunately, that’s not happening until next month.)

In more productive news, if all goes well I should finish the first round paper edits of Book 11 of The Academy of the Accord either tonight or tomorrow night. I’m not looking forward to Book 12, though because it’s going to be a nightmare. I have two different beginnings for it, and two different versions of a scene in one of them, and later on I have at least three or four versions of a different scenario. I’m thinking it’s going to take most of May to figure out.

It may also take most of May to figure out what I did with the three ring binder that holds the concordance that I started. (It wasn’t where I thought it ought to be, so if anyone has any ideas as to where it might have gone, feel free to let me know.)

I really need to hang a calendar near my desk so I can see the weeks. I keep thinking we’re closer to the end of this month than we actually are, but I have two more “weekends” this month.

(Considering how far behind I am on Camp, it’s probably a good thing that there is more month left than I think there is.)

I was on a roll with the revisions for Onyx Sun (my Camp project) the other day and then had to go to the (increasingly) evil day job. I’m trying to do at least one page every day on work days and am going to have to hit it really hard on my weekends. The Camp stats page tells me I still have 139 pages to go, need to do 10 pages a day to finish on time, and “At This Rate You Will Finish On June 26, 2017.”

I don’t think I’m going to do any revision work today though. I had one of those nights where I was awake every hour and a half to two hours all night long and I’m pretty sure that editing in this sort of sleep deprived fog would be somewhat disastrous.

On a brighter note, thanks largely to the aforementioned evil day job, the first round paper edits of Book 10 of the Academy of the Accord series is done as of last night.

I was hoping to start on Book 11, but didn’t manage to do it; there were just too many interruptions throughout the shift. Hopefully I can start work on it at work tonight if I can get enough caffeine into my system.

(A friend of mine said I should have made finishing the first round paper edits of The Academy of the Accord my Camp project. I’m beginning to think she was right.)

So, all in all, I’m making progress. I’m just not making progress on the right project.

Well, hey, here it is. Friday. Time for another blog post. And time to go back to work. (Friday is my Monday; my weekend is Wednesday and Thursday.)

It’s also more or less the middle of the month, and I am… nowhere near the middle of my goal for Camp NaNoWriMo. (Closer to a fifth of the way if I’m doing the math right.)

I had wanted to get caught up over my weekend, but it was pretty busy. I spent way too much time and money shopping on Wednesday (food shopping – not even fun shopping), and cooking both Wednesday and Thursday. (My roommate and I are both nurses and both work on Sunday so we did our “Easter Dinner” yesterday.) I was pretty wiped out by the end of the day both days and feel like I need a day off to recover from my days off.

I am going to try to get a couple more pages done before work today, though. Every little bit helps, right?

Hopefully I’ll have some easy shifts this week so I can get more work done on the first round paper edits of The Academy of the Accord series. I’m currently on Book 10, and if I can get it done by the end of the month, and get Books 11 and 12 done by the end of next month, then I can try to get the concordance done by the end of the year, which will make the next round of edits go much more smoothly. I hope. I’m still shooting for a 2020 release for the series, and it’s almost looking possible.

Meanwhile, writing new stuff has been on hold, other than a flash fiction piece for the QSF contest and occasional Thursday Threads entries. And now I’m looking at maybe writing a short story or two to submit for consideration in an anthology…

Yes, I know I should be working on the sequel to Song and Sword, and I will be, but the deadline for the anthology is June 1st and it doesn’t really have one, so…

Week one of Camp NaNoWriMo is wrapping up and I’m feeling kind of “blah.” Editing for Camp isn’t nearly as much fun as writing for Camp so it’s kind of hard to work up any enthusiasm for it.

(Then again, editing isn’t nearly as much fun as writing even when it’s not for Camp.)

So, anyhow, I still have 150 some pages to enter changes to, and two additional scenes that are written but need to be inserted somewhere. And a ton of notes to work through. (No wonder I’ve been putting this project off!)

And, of course, the increasingly evil day job to contend with. I’m seriously about to beg for a steady night shift there. I could take my laptop, put my current project on a thumb drive, and edit the heck out of stuff.

But since that’s unlikely to happen (plus, as mentioned before, I have trouble sleeping during daylight hours), it looks like I’m going to have to carry on as is for a while.

So far I’m hanging on with NaPoWriMo, too, thanks largely to my dogs (two poems about them) and the weather. (Spring weather in Pennsylvania is always good for poems – it’s totally unpredictable.) It is still early in the month, though, and subjects get harder to find near the end.

I even managed to enter Siobhan Muir’s Thursday Thread challenge yesterday. (And my first draft was only three words over the limit.)

Now if I could just get something written to submit to the Queer SciFi flash fiction contest with a deadline of the 10th… I’m trying, but I keep coming up empty, or with things that will require way more than 300 words.

I should go back to writing haikus. They are great for teaching economy of words.

So I finally got started writing again and was on a pretty good roll with the current Elven Bard novel yesterday morning – I added about 500 words or so, but then I had to go to work.

But I was on fire! Ready to dive back into it when I got home.

But then work happened.

It should have been a good night. It wasn’t a shower night, it wasn’t blood sugar day, and I had two good aides. (Although there’d been a bit of weirdness between them the night before, but still, they were good aides and I figured we could muddle through another night before I talked to the bosses today.)

Ha!

Three hours into the shift, after yelling at the other aide (and yelling and swearing at me) one of them threw his i.d. badge about ten feet from the back room behind the nurse’s station onto my desk, and walked out.

So, yeah. There went the “good night” at work.

And there went my writing time when I got home. I sort of needed to use 750words to destress from work.

I did manage to get some more editing of Book 8 of The Academy of the Accord series done, though, so that’s something at least.

And I’m hoping to dive back into writing after work tonight. (As long as nothing changes I have two very drama-free aides tonight and tomorrow.)